Page 33 of Too Wylde To Tame
Her parents could still be in Bath.
Shushing her own internal negativity, Charity took a deep breath as the carriage rumbled closer to the church. It was a quaint church, more than six hundred years old. The worn stone facade showed its age in the most perfect ways, lending a bit of romance to their hasty ceremony. It was also the sight of that anonymous knight’s tomb where they hadalmostshared their first kiss.
“Sit up straight! You’ll crease your gown.”
That hissed warning had come from her mother and instantly Charity straightened her shoulders. It was an automatic response to her mother’s criticism. She’d already been subjected to her father’s lectures, her mother’s eternal disappointment in her and the fact that somehow, despite the fact that she was marrying a peer who was equal in rank to her sister’s husband, that somehow she had failed to measure up yet again. Not that she cared. She would have married Frederick with or without his title. She adored him. And he adored her.And he didn’t want to change her in anyway.
“Really, Charity, you could at least try to look happy. It is your wedding day,” her mother said.
Rather than immediately complying with her mother’s chastisement as she normally would, Charity stated very calmly, “It’s difficult to look happy when I’ve been told I’m too fat for my gown, my hair is not dressed to your satisfaction, the bridegroom is not lofty enough for your standards and that having a wedding in the country was a waste of perfectly good society. Could you possibly find something positive to say, mother? Or perhaps we could just not speak at all.”
Her mother gasped, clearly offended to the depths of her soul to have her actions questioned so. “You father will collect you from the carriage momentarily. I will wait inside… presuming you still wish for me to be present at your wedding. Given that you clearly hold me in such disdain, it is a wonder you have not rescinded the invitation.”
With that, her mother knocked on the carriage roof and instantly the door opened. The footman helped her down and Charity was left alone. It was just as well. She needed to collect her thoughts. She needed to a moment to calm her jangled nerves and prepare herself for what was to come. It wasn’t doubt or fear. Rather it was simply the overwhelming emotion that accompanied what she was about to embark upon.
“I will marry the man I love. We will have a wonderful life together. And I need never be forced to endure unwarranted and unnecessary criticism from others… ever again.”
* * *
“Nervous?”
Frederick turned to Phinneas and shook his head. “Not in the least. Anxious in the best possible way, however. I’d have married her yesterday if it had been permitted. I’d have married her the first night I met her, if I could have.”
Phinneas chuckled. “There is something about them… the Wylde Wallflowers they called themselves. They are, each of them, unique and quite special. I cannot fathom why other men did not see it, but I am thankful for their blindness.”
“As am I.” Somehow, though they had only been acquaintances prior to his interest in Charity, he and Viscount Randford had formed a strong friendship during his time at Randford House. “Thank you, Merrick. Thank you for all that you’ve done to bring this about.”
Phinneas said nothing, just nodded.
At that very second, the church doors opened. Charity stepped through the door on her father’s arm. He’d never seen her look more beautiful. Wearing the deep green silk dress she’d worn the very night they’d met, he could not take his eyes off her. With each step that carried her down the aisle toward him, the dream became that much closer to reality.
The vicar began the ceremony. Everyone responded appropriately to the questions asked of them. Her father indicated that he was giving her hand in marriage to Frederick then took his seat. Charity and he both answered the vicar’s questions about their right to be married. And then the service began in earnest, each of them bowing their head to pray.
It was during the prayer that the church door opened once more. Initially, he paid it little heed, thinking it might be an additional guest, or perhaps someone from the village come to see the vicar, unaware a wedding was taking place. But when the prayer was completed and he looked up, he caught sight of the interloper, and a feeling of dread washed through him.
Oliver Kent stood there, a smirk upon his lips. At his side, there were two people—Lady Finola Wilmot and Mrs. Gloria Haviland—two of the Ton’s most notorious gossips. And if rumor was to be believed, Mrs. Haviland was also his lover. Frederick knew instantly that things would not go according to plan.
“If anyone knows reason that this man and woman should not be joined…”
The vicar’s words faded into the haze of fury that washed through him as Oliver Kent stepped forward.
“I object,” Kent said. “The lady had promised herself to me.”
Charity gasped in shock even as Frederick shouted back at him, “That is a lie, sir. As everyone here well knows!”
The vicar was stammering incoherently, clearly having never encountered such a situation before. In general, asking for objections was only a formality. Mr. Wylde appeared to be on the verge of an apoplectic fit while Mrs. Wylde hung her head in shame. Marguerite was full of indignation, based on her rigid posture and the pugnacious set of her jaw. Kent was in for a fight that he had not accounted for.
“Vicar, we will take this discussion to your study,” Phinneas directed instantly. “Charity, Frederick, Mr. Kent and myself. Everyone else shall remain here and in a very short time, this ceremony will resume.”
Frederick nodded. If he had to take Charity and run to Scotland with her, they would be married. Under any circumstances and at any cost necessary.
TWENTY-FOUR
Oliver Kent eyed the small gathering with contempt. He hadn’t wanted to run afoul of Randford, but under the circumstances, what choice did he have? Charity Wylde was a spinster with a fortune far more impressive than he had initially guessed—a fact he certainly hadn’t been aware of when he’d set Jameson Dartwell on her. But his circumstances had altered since then. Dramatically. A ship that was not an insignificant investment for him had gone down, all crew and cargo lost. A fortune in silks and printed cottons, not to mention spices and other exotic items, were now at the bottom of the Channel.
That loss had come on the heels of a particularly desperate night at the tables. Now he was struggling to hold it all together because he’d never been quite as flush as everyone had believed and he’d never bothered to correct anyone’s assumptions about his degree of wealth. One of the reasons he’d set Jameson Dartwell on that course was that Dartwell owed him a small fortune. But there had been little to no point in trying to squeeze blood from a turnip. He’d needed Jameson to inherit in order to repay the many loans Oliver had given him, but that had become a muddled mess. So a new plan had arisen—one where he took Miss Charity Wylde for himself.
There were only three potential outcomes for his present scheme, to his way of thinking, and he would happily walk away with any of them. The first, Welbey would abandon her in the wake of such a scandal and find himself a bride whose reputation was not tainted. The second, he would be well paid by either Randford or Welbey to take his banbury tale and sidle quietly back to London. The third, the lady’s father would step in and demand that she marry him rather than have her reputation entirely ruined. Either way, he’d get something out of it—whether that was satisfactory revenge or financial gain remained to be seen.
